He showed a clear weakness for Corvettes, particularly those with their hoods propped open. He admired the elongated quarter panel of a 1969 Buick Electra and a salmon-colored racing stripe on a black late-model Ford Mustang. He was so smitten at times that he ignored signs imploring visitors to look but not touch.
Only up close, when a small entourage of photographers and plainclothes state troopers came into view, was it clear that this was not any ordinary gearhead, but New York’s gearhead in chief: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
And Mr. Cuomo, car-obsessed ever since his teenage days working at a gas station in Hollis, Queens, was in his element, moving along row after row of muscle cars and peppering their owners with questions. “I’m having a ball,” he declared, and the hour he spent inspecting car after car lined up in a park here left little doubt.
Sunday was one of those days when Mr. Cuomo waved off his State Police driver and got behind the wheel: first, to drive from his Westchester County home to a breakfast in Harlem honoring the African American Day Parade, where he gave a speech about gun violence, and then to Eisenhower Park here, for Nassau County’s car show, in its second year.
He all but apologized for his own ride — a deep sky-blue 1975 model that he bought for $4,750 while in college — saying it was nothing compared with most at the show. “I use it — it’s not a show car by any means,” he said. “I leave it in a parking lot, so the car isn’t as clean as these cars. It’s far from perfect.”
Mr. Cuomo parked next to a gold 1969 Corvette, owned by another politician and car buff — the Nassau County executive, Edward P. Mangano, a Republican. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, gushed about Mr. Mangano’s car, calling it “something you pass on generation to generation.” For a while, the two men huddled over the engine of Mr. Cuomo’s Corvette, sharing tips on cleaning grime from the engine manifold (Mr. Cuomo touched his up with a paintbrush, an idea Mr. Mangano found intriguing).
In brief remarks, Mr. Cuomo — clutching a trophy that Mr. Mangano awarded him for having the best, if only, gubernatorial Corvette at the show — said he spent three hours on Saturday changing the oil in his car and cleaning it.
“I’m all sore today,” he told the crowd. “I’m all cramped from moving around the car. But it is a great passion. It’s a great hobby.”
He proceeded to tell the story of his car. “I look at that car now and I smile, sometimes — the memories of days gone by,” he said. Then, playfully, he added: “There’s no back seat in the Corvette, so that’s not where it is.”
Mr. Cuomo, in a pink short-sleeve button-up shirt and chinos, was in a jocular mood: he punctuated his remarks by telling the crowd that after getting Republicans and Democrats to work together in Albany this year, he planned to raise the bar and “try to get G.M. guys and Ford guys to work together.”
On a blustery September day, Mr. Cuomo went up and down the rows of cars, defying the playbook of the politician photo op: instead of posing for a picture or two and then being whisked out of public view, the governor kept going and going, turning after each row of cars and pressing on, intent on surveying more.
Mr. Cuomo spotted a black 1968 Pontiac GTO, the same model that Mr. Cuomo owns and is using to teach his twin 16-year-old daughters how to drive — a task that the governor said remained a “work in progress.” Mr. Cuomo deemed the car at the show to be “magnificent,” much to the delight of its owner, Joe Iannarelli, 49, who lives in Oceanside and owns an auto-repair shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “I turned around and saw him, and I was blown away,” Mr. Iannarelli said. “It made my day.”
One of Mr. Cuomo’s longest examinations came when he came across a blue 1969 Corvette. The governor halted, puzzled, when he looked under the hood; the motor turned out to be the same kind used in some new Corvettes.
Several car enthusiasts said Mr. Cuomo proved his auto-buff chops through his questioning. Studying the souped-up Corvette, Mr. Cuomo noticed that the motor had been fitted with different-looking fuel injection tubes and valve covers — carbon fiber parts, he observed, accurately, said Chris Tucci, 46, whose car restoration company in Lindenhurst installed the new motor.
Mr. Tucci said he got a kick out of seeing the governor inspect his handiwork.
“It’d be cooler if he’d lower my taxes,” he said, “but, yeah, it’s pretty cool.”